Room 23
by LePetitChatNoir
Summary: Math. Most hated on Earth. Gym was close behind, but it had nothing on Math. Math never gave me anything, well, except for Edward, but you already new that; it says so just below the summary 'Bella & Edward'. Still hate Math though.


Room 23,

New Block,

Forks High School.

Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, and breathe out.

Have you ever hated a lesson so much that… so much that… well, you just really, really hated it? I like to think that I'm good at picking out the good parts of absolutely anything, with my inner voices bickering about every aspect of everything that ever happened, ever, it's hard not to pick at things. Like seeing a speck of light in the black night no matter how dark, but I see nothing in Math, any light that once lit up in math has been sat on by heavy dark layers of graph paper and simultaneous equations, Math is dead, gone, zilch, nada, flattened, crushed, trampled the list just goes on when it comes to Math and even breathing exercises will not help me from this; I know by experience but still I keep trying anyway – maybe one day I will be fully prepared for this nightmare.

Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, and breathe out.

I step into hell's classroom and slowly walk the dismal funeral march to my seat, which is thankfully at the back in the corner, slightly behind a filing cabinet and I start to prepare myself for this hours' worth of slow, painful mathematical torture.

Note that I said slowly, I was looking at my feet so I didn't trip up on the invisible lump in the carpet. You know, the one that only I seem to trip over, 'I' being the clumsiest person that ever lived. I'm surprised I've made it this far in life with my head still attached and all of my limbs still stuck together.

"Okay," I mutter quietly to myself in reassurance, leaning back to grab my ratty bag from where I dropped it down on to the floor. Brown strands falling across my vision as I did so. Had it only been last week I had it cut? It was no use, my hair was insatiable. I push it back to prevent getting a mouthful of it.

I inherited my bland hair colour from my hardworking father, Charlie Swan, the Chief of Police in this dreary excuse for a gathering of houses, church, school and shops grouped together and named Forks in the rainiest part of the Olympic Peninsula. Charlie has lived here is whole life and has no intention of leaving this place anytime soon. He married my Mom, Renee, just out of high school and had me, Isabella Marie Swan – or Bella for short – not too long after.

That was seventeen years ago now, still not much has changed in our house in Forks except Renee getting a divorce and leaving, a computer nicknamed the 'dinosaur' installed in my bedroom on the desk and Charlie's ever receding hair line and grey-ing moustache.

Renee is now living in Jacksonville with her new husband, Phil Dwyer. I don't like Phil; his smile always looked just a tad too fake – well, faker than the better concealed cheap smiles I could see on other parents – and I could tell by the expression on his face, when he thought no one was looking, that he had a strong dislike for kids. Well that was just fine with me because I no longer had to put up with his crap and if Renee wanted to do that, it was is her own business that I wanted nothing to do with, it was her life not mine.

Charlie's small home was a bit away from the centre of Forks with our backyard backing onto the dense forest, Emmett McCarthy has lived next door to Charlie and me for as long as I can remember, he was a lot like an older brother to me, even though he was only one grade above mine, and helped a lot with my school work. Emmett is unbelievably clever, I say unbelievably because you would not believe me if you saw him, he has a huge frame but his short, dark, curly hair, dimples and the constant, appalling jokes he tells gives people the impression he's a bit on the dimmer side of life. Emmett lends me his maths book to copy out the exercises; the maths department are too lazy to change the curriculum work books so I can just recycle Emmett's old school work.

Apart from hair the colour of shit, I also have almond shaped eyes to match and out of proportion lips as well. My skin was pale ghostly white which wasn't as noticeable because of the lack of sun, no one had a tan here anyway, but I was always blushing left right and centre making me look like a tomato. And just to boost my confidence, I had to be the most uncoordinated at fashion and hair styling.

Said hair that can't be styled, was now caught in the zipper on my old faithful bag after infuriatingly swishing back down in my way again from behind my ear. If I had curls it would have stayed there easier, damn my genetic faults.

I yanked my head back sharply. Ow. My hair was now free of the constricting metal trap but I had hit my head on the bottom of the desk in the yanking part. Sigh. The lesson had not even started yet and I'd already started self-inflicting pain.

I heard muffled laughter from up above and sat up slowly to see the classroom was starting to become populated with the grungy teenage students that made up the population of our year group. I glared at a few of them and they quickly dropped their eyes; didn't want to be caught looking at the weird girl.

I pulled my stuff out of my bag; maths book, calculator, Emmett's old book to copy out of, pencil case and notepad and spread my stuff out on the desk where it always went. Sitting sideways in my chair with my back leaning against the cold wall and my side against the back of the chair I waited with a grim expression that was hard to keep of my face for the teacher of said supposed lesson to appear.

The classroom was filling up more now and the noise level was rising, I could hear Lauren and her bitches cackling away at some unfortunate soul and people discussing what they chose for their subject in our English assignment. Mine was already finished, of course. English was my guilty pleasure –along with small doodle designs and hanging with 'sister-of-Emmett-pixie –youngster' (pronounced soup-y for short), my best friend.

I opened my notebook to a fresh page, took a pencil out of my pencil case and began to slowly doodle over the lines on the page; loops and swirls today I decide as I let my mind wander to what I needed to do tonight, the homework, cooking dinner, steak maybe, hmmm… I needed to wash my hair again after it got soaked in rain this morning when I was caught without a hood, and I could do with getting more shampoo, must go to the lone store in Forks…

I was pulled out of my thoughts when I sensed the class quieting down some; I closed the notebook and tried to put on my face which said 'I am interested… honest!' I wasn't even remotely interested in whatever was happening to the easily animated teenage crowed.

**She** had entered the classroom.

Mrs Harrow has 2 fat legs, chubby arms, and a large bloated torso. Her face was plump and flabby but still managed to look wrinkly, her eyes were small and her thin lips never graced us with a smile but a malicious grimace when you told her unwillingly you hadn't done the homework and she would have to give you a detention to pay for your 'sins'.

Mrs Harrow wore the colours of Christmas, brown shoes and pants, an old faded green t-shirt and a bright red thin coat over the top. Although her appearance reminds us of a festive time of year, she can make grown men cry like the times that they got all the presents they didn't want and none of the ones they had hoped for.

Her hair is long, not as long as mine but still long; it is tangled from top to bottom and starts of an ancient shade of grey turning a yellowy-white at the split, damaged ends. She definitely needs it cut, and then be taught how to use conditioner.

She lumped down onto her extra-large worn out wheelie chair and wheeled around the classroom to the sideboard and pointed at the two unlucky souls at the nearest desk for them to hand out the work books. I then watched in disgust as she wheeled back towards the white board to write on the page number, date and title.

The class was deadly silent now, no one wanted to disrupt this regular cycle which we endured every math lesson.

Knock, knock.

The attention of the class swung towards the door to the figure you could see behind the opaque glass. How could this be? Did this person not know of the rules of this classroom? I was pretty sure the lady at the front desk warns new students not to be late to this god forsaken lesson, was Ms Cope ill? Or was this child wanting for death? You should never interrupt Mrs Harrow, if you were late it would be better to stay at home and come in after this lesson was finished than interrupt now. Maybe this was a kid who has been moved from a different class and has no idea.

Then I thought it over more and realised… I don't really care, this kid would realize their mistakes pretty soon and it had nothing to do with me. I looked back down to my notebook and joined up some of the loose lines to form a more complex pattern, trying to block out the gasps, squeals and murmurs of 'oh my god, he's so hot' from my ears. Whoever this kid was, being 'hot' would not save him from his gruel-some fate.

I sighed quietly and moved my pencil down the page just a bit and began to doodle again with overlapping circles and ovals.

Deadly silence now filled the room; you could hear very clearly the heavy footsteps of this kid as he was sent with his head down to his seat. Then I made my first mistake, I looked up, into the eyes of deaths bringer as she wheeled squeakily towards me slowly.

"Swan," Her raspy voice sounded like she had a thousand bees buzzing in her throat.

"You will be staying in at lunch to help Cullen with catching up…" Hmmm, Cullen; nope, hadn't heard that name here before. Must be a new kid, everyone knew everyone here it wasn't possible I just hadn't heard of him.

"…after all," she continued "you could do with getting extra credit… I feel like your grade will go down significantly otherwise…" yes, I know what you're thinking, and yes she could do that. Her eyes narrowed for a second, holding my gaze before she wheeled off towards the front desk again.

"Exercise is on the board, get on with it." She commanded and glued her eyes back to her laptop screen on her desk.

I peeked a sideways glance toward the Cullen kid to my left, my eyes flickering to the maths book he was scribbling in. Scratch that, his writing could never be called scribbling; it was neat and looked more like calligraphy. The numbers swirled across his page and I couldn't help but wonder what they would look like in English. It might be worth getting to know this guy after all.

I watched his expensive looking fountain pen swirl across the page, and then it was gone. WTF! I almost snapped out of the trance it had put me in. Almost.

Something jabbed in to my arm, I ignored it, still looking at his work of art, I leaned over a bit to get a better view. That something was now shoved in my face. I blinked and looked down at what had fallen in my lap.

I recognised the paper immediately. How dare he rip out of my notebook! Any chance he now had was gone of getting on the right side of me. I opened the slip of paper, my gaze tinted red.

_Stop copying my work_

My frown softened as I gazed over the perfect script on the slightly screwed up notebook page. I shook my head to clear it of the mist that had fogged it up from my trance.

COPYING!

My blood was boiling, would he make it out of this lesson alive?

No one knows…


End file.
